Friday, December 9, 2011

Satay and Batavia

Last Saturday night, we went to dinner with Ben and Erin, followed by a drink or two at Cafe Batavia, a relic of the Dutch colonial era here in Jakarta.

Loungin'...

We had plans to hit up a particular restaurant for padang food, but our plans were foiled, as they were closed when we arrived. We walked around a bit and randomly chose to try this satay restaurant that ended up being pretty great... cool middle eastern decor, cold beers, and giant dragon boat full of various types of satay from all over Indonesia (chicken, fish, beef, squid, tofu, other tasty things shall remain unknown because I don't know what they are and probably don't want to know), with eight different dipping sauces. Mmmm...

Giant dragon boat full of satay!! So good.

Not-so-tiny dips.

After dinner we ventured to Cafe Batavia, which is in Old Jakarta, right on Fatahillah Square, which is a bumpin' local hangout on Saturday night. I know the photo below is terrible (taken through the window (that wouldn't open) on the second story of the cafe), but you can kinda see all of the stalls set up, selling everything from t-shirts to handmade Barbie clothes to jewelry to "magic beans" (we could only deduce that they had some aphrodisiac-like powers), and offering such services as cupping, tattooing, and palm reading.

Terrible photo of Saturday night chaos at Fatahillah Square.

Cafe Batavia itself was pretty interesting... definitely had a weird colonial vibe to it. Not someplace I'd like to hang out every day, but definitely worth a visit.